A major scam in the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department’s plantation activities has been exposed by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report, revealing that tree plantation was shown in areas that already had dense forests. The audit has uncovered significant misuse of government funds with no actual ground-level work being carried out.
Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu presented the CAG report in the state assembly on Monday, covering the period from 2006 to March 2021, along with an audit report on the implementation of the Forest Conservation Act 1980 from April 2016 to March 2021. The report has recommended investigation and action against officials responsible for the financial irregularities.
The audit revealed that the forest department failed to obtain information about cost escalations in hydroelectric projects and did not demand an additional fund of Rs 198.73 crore from user agencies. The report highlighted that no watershed area treatment plans were prepared for any of the three projects under review. Site inspections for plantation work under the Bajoli Holi project were changed without proper verification.
According to the findings, 83 percent of afforestation work was carried out outside open degraded forests, while 47 percent of afforestation activities were conducted in areas that already had dense forest cover. This raises serious questions about the necessity of plantation in these locations and points to a complete lack of scientific site selection methodology.
The CAG report has made several critical recommendations to the state government. The forest department has been advised to expedite the settlement of pending cases under the Forest Conservation Act and ensure accurate uploading of compensatory afforestation information on the e-Green Watch portal. The audit also recommended creating a land bank and centralized database for hydroelectric projects, along with taking appropriate action against guilty officials and investigating fund misuse.
A shocking revelation emerged regarding the e-Green Watch app where compensatory afforestation data from 9 sites in Himachal Pradesh was fraudulently uploaded using coordinates from other states. The KML files showed plantation sites in Himachal being uploaded from locations in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Haryana, indicating systematic data manipulation.
Specific instances of this geographical fraud include the 2020 compensatory plantation file for Tanara Bridge to Panvi Road in Siraj division being uploaded from Batauli in Chhattisgarh. Similarly, the 2018 file for Buai to link Road in Kullu was shown as uploaded from Kaspety Road in Uttar Pradesh. The Soil to Tandla road construction file in Kullu was attributed to Jharkhand, while the 2017 Lagvalley file in Kullu was shown as uploaded from Chhattisgarh.
The report exposes a systematic failure in forest department operations where scientific planning and genuine conservation efforts were replaced by paper transactions and false documentation. The practice of showing plantation work in already forested areas not only represents financial fraud but also indicates a complete disregard for environmental conservation principles.
The CAG findings suggest that the forest department operated with minimal oversight and accountability, allowing officials to manipulate data and claim credit for non-existent plantation activities. The use of coordinates from other states in official documentation demonstrates the extent to which the system was compromised.
The revelation has serious implications for Himachal Pradesh’s environmental conservation efforts, as genuine afforestation and forest protection activities may have been neglected while officials focused on creating false documentation to show compliance with regulations. The misuse of funds meant for environmental conservation represents a double loss for the state’s ecological future.
The state government now faces the challenge of investigating the full extent of the fraud, recovering misused funds, and rebuilding the forest department’s credibility. The CAG recommendations provide a roadmap for systemic reforms, but implementation will require strong political will and administrative commitment to genuine environmental conservation.
